Rights can be lost in a secondOlder trans people reveal their fears after supreme court ruling

Older trans people reveal their fears after supreme court ruling

- Libby Brooks

The fear is back. The fear I had when I first started my transition in 1979, that people will hurt me.

Janey is 70 years old. She has been living "happily and independently" as a woman for nearly half a century. Based in London, she still works in the mental health sector, and is part of a large and accepting Irish family. She is also transgender.

"I still go into the women's toilets at work, but when I open the door there's that little voice inside me: 'Will someone shout at me?'"

Last week's supreme court ruling sent shockwaves through the UK's trans community - the unanimous judgment decided that the legal definition of a woman in the Equality Act 2010 does not include transgender women who hold gender recognition certificates (GRCs). That feeling was compounded when Kishwer Faulkner, chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which is preparing statutory guidance, said the judgment meant only biological women could use single-sex changing rooms and toilets.

Janey's colleagues don't know she's trans. She remembers the 1980s all too well, when "people would beat the shit out of you just for being different".

"I always felt I didn't have to tell people other than close friends. By my early 30s, I thought: 'I am me, end of story.' I did what everybody else did, going out dancing, and I was treated like any other woman, which included being harassed by men". Coming home at night, Janey still carries her keys in her hand.